A New Barrios Piece from Tony Morris

Tony Morris, of Classical Guitar Alive! fame, has been spending a lot of time researching Barrios lately. Last year he released his transcription of Bicho Feo, and just recently he’s released another of Barrios’ pieces: Isabel (Gavota). There are some program notes included with the transcription below

So am I the only person on the blog who has played through the first ten or so measures only to realize that my hands won’t let me do that thumb over the neck trick? What, did Barrios have Paginini’s long fingers or what?

Oh I understand the manuver quite well Pete, having seen Hendrix perform it a plethora of times (yes, I just referneced Hendrix on the CGB, don’t flame me, he’s the only person I’ve seen do it). I was simply stating that the physical size of my hand does not allow me to fret the B with finger 4, D with the 3 finger, G sharp with 1, and E with the 2 AND hook my thumb (5?)over the neck to fret the other B. Seems like I could almost bar the B and the E with the middle, but that makes getting a good sound out of the G sharp hard. It’s not a huge deal, as I’m not ready to drop the piece I’m working on to dive into this one, I just wanted to tool around it a little while and get a sense of how it sounded.

It’s a low G# for the thumb. Pete is right, I misread the notation — haven’t had a chance to read through Isabell yet (concert rep to practice, etc). The thumb comes underneath the neck, around the front of the fingerboard. Not over the top. Watch Jason Vieaux playing the Sarabande from BWV 995 (around 1:35), he does it.